“March 11. ... The Maréchal de Bassompierre is so bored at Tillières that he declares that he repents of having left the Bastille and followed in that the advice of his friends.”
Some weeks later, and very shortly before his death, Louis XIII authorised the Maréchaux de Bassompierre and de Vitry and the Comte de Cramail to reappear at Court.
It is related that when Bassompierre went to pay his respects to the King, his Majesty received him very graciously and inquired how old he was. “Fifty, Sire,” was the reply. “Surely you are much older than that?” exclaimed the King, in surprise. “I deduct the twelve years passed in the Bastille, since they were not employed in the service of your Majesty.” And on being presented to a beautiful young girl, he observed: “Mademoiselle, how much do I regret my youth when I see you!”
Nevertheless, so greatly had the tone and manners of fashionable society changed since that fatal day when he had lost his liberty, that poor Bassompierre—Bassompierre who had formerly passed for the marvel of the old Court!—appears, with his habits of magnificence and gallantry, to have been regarded as a trifle antiquated, though, in the opinion of Madame de Motteville, “the remains of the Maréchal de Bassompierre were worth more than the youth of some of the most polished of that time.” The young men to whom Madame de Motteville refers formed the cabal of the “Importants,” whose ephemeral reign was terminated by the imprisonment of the Duc de Beaufort (September, 1643). To this cabal belonged the Marquis de la Châtre, who, on the death of Coislin, who had died in 1641 from wounds received at the siege of Aire, had succeeded him as Colonel-General of the Swiss. He was obliged to surrender this post, of which the marshal resumed possession, on condition of paying Le Châtre the 400,000 livres which he had received from Coislin. Bassompierre’s resignation was considered as null and void, and the post as not having been vacated.
Bassompierre did not long enjoy this return of favour. On October 12, 1646, his servants found him dead in his bed at Provins, where he had stopped for the night, while returning to Paris from a visit to the elder Bouthillier’s country-house. He had evidently passed away peacefully in his sleep, “as he was found in his customary position, one hand under the pillow at the place where his head rested, and his knees a little raised.”[151] His body was brought in a coach to Chaillot; the intestines, the tongue, and the brain were buried in the parish church before the high altar; the heart and the rest of the body were delivered by the curé to the Minims of Migeon, whose convent was close to the château, and deposited in a chapel to the left of the high altar, in the choir of their church. The Duc de Chevreuse and “other nobles and ladies of high quality, with a great number of bourgeois and inhabitants of Chaliot (sic),” assisted at the funeral ceremony.
The Maréchal de Bassompierre left two sons; one by Marie d’Entragues, the other by the Princesse de Conti. The first, who was called Louis de Bassompierre, took Holy Orders, and, after being provided, doubtless through his father’s influence, with two rich abbeys, was consecrated Bishop of Oloron, a see which he subsequently exchanged for the more important one of Saintes. He was, in later years, appointed almoner to Monsieur, brother of Louis XIV; but this post he resigned, in order that he might reside continuously in his diocese, in which respect he set an example which other bishops would have done well to follow.
The Bishop of Saintes was a pious and worthy man, beloved by the poor and esteemed by everyone. During the troubles of the Fronde he laboured to maintain in their allegiance to the Crown, or to bring back to their duty, the population of Saintes, Brouage and the surrounding country, and it was he who negotiated the accommodation of the Comte, afterwards the Maréchal, du Daugnon with the Court. He died in Paris, whither he had come on business connected with his diocese, on July 1, 1676. “Hélas!” writes Madame de Sévigné, “à propos of sleeping, poor M. de Saintes has fallen asleep this night in the Lord in an eternal sleep. He had been ill for twenty-five days, bled thirteen times, and yesterday morning he was without fever. He talked for an hour with the Abbé Têtu (these kind of improvements are nearly always deceptive), and on a sudden he fell back in agony, and, in short, we have lost him. As he was extremely lovable, he is extremely regretted.”
“The worthy prelate,” says the Gazette de France, “has left his friends sensibly afflicted, the poor of his diocese in the extremity of grief, and all those who knew him edified by the exemplary actions of his life, and his Christian resignation at death.” By a will, made the year before his death, he left all his property to the poor and the churches of his diocese.
The marshal’s son by the Princesse de Conti was known as François de la Tour. He is described by Goulas as “one of the handsomest and bravest men of the Court”; and Tallemant des Réaux writes:
“He [Bassompierre] had a son by the Princesse de Conti, who was called La Tour-Bassompierre; it is believed that he would have recognised him, if he had had the leisure. This La Tour was brave and well made. In a duel in which he took part as second, having to fight with a man who for some years had had a disabled right arm, but had accustomed himself to make use of his left, he allowed his right arm to be bound and, nevertheless, beat his adversary.”